Autonomous tank will track you down, cover you in welts

[Dan] wrote in to share a project he recently finished up, an autonomous Airsoft tank. The toy tank makes use of a wide array of technologies to get the job done, and will stop at nothing to hunt you down (provided you are wearing an IR beacon).

An Arduino board is used to control the tank’s motors, while a Lego NXT module handles most of the other operations. The tank makes its way around using an ultrasonic sensor, which ensures it doesn’t get stuck on any errant furniture or hung up in a corner. While driving around autonomously is well and good, [Dan] upped the ante a bit by making the Airsoft turret completely autonomous as well.

He fitted a Wiimote IR sensor to the tank, successfully interfacing it with the NXT module after a bit of trial and error. Now that things are up and running, he can place his IR beacon anywhere in the room, and the tank will drive around scanning its surroundings until the target is found. Once the tank locks on, a flurry of Airsoft pellets take down whatever stands in its way.

We think that [Dan] did a fantastic job here, but see for yourself in the videos embedded after the break.

Id like to see this thing track radio transmissions shoot the person using the cell phone would be funny I can think of real world applications for this radio frequency tracking too but ill just keep my mouth shut

Heh, I would love that. If nothing else, it would be of great use in our theatre. The ~~400Hz sound of the carrier on EDGE signals is annoying as hell over the comm systems. Every time someone pulls out a cell phone or gets/sends a text…

How about illuminating the target with an IR pointer instead of using a beacon.
Then when someone says “Hey, why does it just wander around like that? What’s it looking for?”
“I thought you’d never ask!” “Muahhh Ha Haaa!!”